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Comment by happytiger | Hacker News Reader

It’s so great that musicians can have a backup plan that works lol. :)

My parents-in-law had an old friend who with her folk-singer husband ran a club in Montreal in the early 60s. Bob Dylan came through town before he changed his name. They were sitting around after the show and Annette said to him: "Kid. You better go back to college. You need something to fall back on." Dylan told her: "If I don't, you'll eat my hat."

She had other great stories. Lenny Cohen played "Suzanne" for her and said "what do you think?" Annette: "it stinks. who wrote it?" Lenny: "I did."

She’s not wrong

Aw come on. It's Suzanne by Lenny Cohen.

I don’t know how exactly we got on this topic, but there’s also an excellent Weezer song called “Suzanne.”

Edit: I guess it’s actually spelled “Susanne.”

Later on, Michael Stipe of REM wrote a song that shamelessly ripped off Suzanne, except it was about merging a human's DNA with a crocodile. He asked Peter Buck what he thought, and Buck said "it's great, but it was great when it was Suzanne too".

Annette sounds like a straight shooter.

Cheers from Montréal!

I'd like to add the caution that songs might change a lot during their author's life, and the "suzanne" she heard might be different from the one we know.

I wonder what Brian May's parents thought... "It's tough to make a living as a musician... if that doesn't work out... uh-oh, astrophysics is his backup plan?"

TBH, teachning music is the general backup plan for all musicians, so there was another one.

"I mean, you just never know if this rock and roll thing is going to work out, son."

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